2021 BYC Calendar - We Need Your Pictures!

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IMGL7434 fighting Dusty, Orpy, Prisma small.jpg
As soon as I heard that the 2021 BYC calendar was accepting photos, I got out my camera and took pictures of my girls when I let them out to free range. I was looking for that ultimate glamour shot, preferably of one of my one-year-old Cream Legbars with their funny combs and poof of feathers on their heads backlit by a low sun. Week after week I let the girls free range at a particular time of day when the light was just right and I'd try to entice one or two Cream Legbars to stand in just the right place. Fellow photographers, I'm sure you can empathize with my quest. Chickens have their own ideas of where to run or dust bathe or peck, so day after day after day, I'd have to patiently wait... Oh, I got quite a few shots, but not one stood out as THE shot. So I figured I would keep at it until almost the deadline, then submit my two favorites.

Then one day last week during the girls' free range time, it happened: not the great pose, but the great fight. Dusty, one of the two youngest chickens (both youngest are Cream Legbars) challenged Prisma, a two-year-old Easter Egger. I suspect it was all about pecking order, but I didn't see the start of the fight. I broke up the fight and ran for my camera because the light was good. Maybe I'd get my glamour shot.

But Dusty found Prisma in the raspberry patch and attacked her again. After a moment, I broke them up and placed them at opposite ends of the yard. That didn't help; they found each other and were at it again, this time in a place better suited for photography than a raspberry patch, so I watched. And photographed. That's when I saw Orpy, the Buff Orpington, step in and protect Prisma. Both of them were 2018 babies raised together. And so the shot I'm submitting is not a glamour pose, not a chicken staring into the sunset, but three chickens involved in a pecking order dispute. I have a whole series of shots, including ones of Orpy up in the air attacking Dusty, but this shot is more peaceful. I think for my second submission, I'll look through my 1200 other chicken shots and see if I can find a glamour shot.
 
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